agt.degreesofclarity.comAGT Program

General info The AGT (or Adaptable Generalized Training) program is a general template for developing a broad base of physical fitness. In its basic form, it consists of concurrent strength training, Olympic weightlifting, sprinting, short- and long-duration conditioning, assorted skill practice, and flexibility. It emphasizes strength and power. The adaptational goal of this program is what is commonly known as GPP, or General Physical Preparedness. This is defined for our purposes as a broad basis of fitness that allows an athlete to have competence in nearly any physical domain, and meet any physical challenge, as well as being healthy, injury-resistant, and able to pursue whatever other goals he chooses. The AGT program consists of a generalized template, with a suggested training schedule built up of basic “modules,” as well as recommended components for filling each category. It can be used in one of two ways. Athletes with no specific goals or sport-specific focuses can use the default form of the program to develop and maintain GPP. Athletes with specific goals, competitive sports, or other personal requirements can modify the program to emphasize certain aspects, deemphasize others, reduce overall workload to allow for sports training, or make whatever changes desired. In principle, the program can be performed as-written. In practice, most athletes find the unmodified schedule to be extremely taxing and “cookie-cutter” — in other words, although mathematically elegant on paper, it is challenging to implement in real life (at least for those who are not full-time, professional athletes). Realistically, most who have experimented with the program have found its value to be in the concepts presented, the utility of the template-based schedule, and the suggestions for GPP “best practices” to use for filling each module. In short, the aim of this program is to provide a starting place for athletes looking to build a customized GPP program, allowing easy personalization for idiosyncrasies or for specialization. It is not intended for those seeking a pre-built program that can be adhered to rigidly; it fundamentally demands a well-developed sense of one’s goals and capabilities. Athletes may find the Cavazos-Oto GPP Assessment valuable as a means of periodically gauging incremental improvements in broad fitness. Target users This program is appropriate for advanced beginners, intermediates, and possibly (with modifications) early advanced athletes. It is inappropriate for highly advanced or elite athletes who have very specific training requirements. It is also in most cases inappropriate for rank beginners. This program requires competence with the lifts and exercises it prescribes, the ability to self-coach and self-motivate, and the skill to choose and scale suitable workouts within a flexible template; without any experience whatsoever, beginners generally have none of this. Their best option within the spirit of these recommendations would be to run through Starting Strength or a similar novice program, learn the basic lifts and build strength and muscle, practice the Olympic lifts and some basic bodyweight and miscellaneous movements, perhaps spend some time with a varied program like CrossFit , and come back in a year or two. Template The basic template is a seven-day schedule, designed around a Monday–Friday week, although it can be arranged differently. The suggested scheduling is 3/1/2/1: 3 days of work, 1 day of rest, 2 days of work, 1 day of rest, repeat. In a standard week, this would put the rest days on Thursday and Sunday. The schedule can be modified, with no effect, to 2/1/3/1; this would put the rest days on Wednesday and Sunday. 5/2 is the final possibility, which allows Saturday and Sunday for rest days; however, this can be difficult to get through, since it requires five days in a row of work. Other schedules can be experimented with as well. If you miss a day’s workout, you can do it on the following day, pushing the entire cycle back, but since this will permanently rearrange the schedule, this is only advised if you are flexible and don’t care which days of the week you train. Otherwise, simply drop the missed workout and continue on to the next day. Each day’s menu is designed as a single workout session. However, if it better fits your situation or schedule, you can also break it up across the day into two or more parts, doing different elements at different times. This generally often work best for the skill practice, since its equipment requirements can be unusual, and it often requires no significant warmup. On rest days, there is no required work except stretching. You may do skill practice if you wish, although you should avoid anything significantly fatiguing (like extensive gymnastics holds); and you may perform “active rest” such as playing a recreational sport or undertaking an outdoor activity. It is also recommended to do some mobility work, and any rehabilitation or prehabilitation movements you like. Each day’s workout should take under 90 minutes, except the long-duration cardio day. Strength days will generally take longer than weightlifting days. Here is the template. Click on each module for details. Monday Skill practice Sprints Strength Stretching Tuesday Skill practice Olympic weightlifting Conditioning Stretching Wednesday Skill practice Sprints Strength Stretching Thursday Rest, active if desired Skill practice if desired Stretching Mobility/rehab/prehab recommended Friday Skill practice Olympic weightlifting Conditioning Stretching Saturday Skill practice Long-duration conditioning Stretching Sunday Rest, active if desired Skill practice if desired Stretching Mobility/rehab/prehab recommended Concepts In general, the core theory of the AGT program is that each module has two functions: it is both useful in its own right (sprinting is an intrinsically valuable skill), and it also enhances your other training (sprinting improves your conditioning). Olympic lifters have excellent hip flexibility; gymnasts have impressive core strength; sprinters are strong even without lifting; and so on. This interdependent, synergistic effect is critical; without it, the program is little more than a hodgepodge of concurrent training, no element of which has enough emphasis to actually garner significant improvement. This does not mean that each element is created equal. While they all interact, they exist in a basic hierarchy resembling the following: Strength => Olympic lifting => Sprinting => Conditioning (“Conditioning” includes both short and long metcon. Skill work is too varied to place on this spectrum, since its role will depend on what you are doing. Flexibility is all-encompassing and does not fill a specific niche either.) This is a hierarchy of capacity, not importance: in other words, components on the right tend to be based on foundations developed in the components on the left. For instance, power for the clean and jerk first demands basic strength developed via the slow lifts; you cannot lift fast what you cannot lift slow. This does not mean that the squat is intrinsically “more important” than the clean; relative importances are subjective and each sport or athletic demand emphasizes different areas. However, the squat can be said to set the limits of the clean, and so on down the line. This hierarchy of reliance means that modules on the right have lower priority than those on the left, because their loss has less impact; conditioning is valuable, for instance, but less conditioning has a minimal effect on your strength, whereas less strength makes conditioning largely pointless. Your programming should reflect this basic hierarchy. Customization The template is open to as much customization as you are interested in performing. Trial and error is expected, but experienced athletes should call upon their previous training to make their best guesses as to which methods will work best fo...